"I was in the road one time at night next to a cemetery and I see somethin' white come right up side of me. I didn't run then. You know you can git so scared you can't run, but when I got so I could, I like to killed myself runnin'.
"I'm not able to work now, but I just go anyhow. I got a willin' mind to work and a strong constitution but I ain't got nothin' to back it. I never was sick but twice in my life.
"Since I been in Pine Bluff I worked sixteen years at night firing up and watchin' engines, makin' steam, and never lost but one night. I worked for the Cotton Belt forty-eight years. I worked up until the fust day of this last past May, five years ago, when they laid me off.
"I'm disabled wif dis rheumatism now but I works every day anyway.
"I'll show you I haven't been asleep atall. I worked for the railroad company forty-eight years and I been tryin' to get that railroad pension but there's so much Red Cross (tape) to these things they said it'd be three months before they could do anything."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Jim Davis
1112 Indiana Street
Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 98
[TR: Same as previous informant despite age difference.]
"Well, I've broke completely down. I ain't worth nothing. Got rheumatism all over me.